Vexing
by MsCoffeebear
Summary: "You don't even know what you're doing to me, you bastard!", he mumbled. "Before you came into my life I was always best at everything, but now it's a constant struggle and it's vexing but exciting at the same time and every time I see your face I just want to-" High School AU where Light is not used to someone being on par with him and L fully exploiting that fact. Dorks in Love.


Hi guys, so this is my first venture into Death Note fanfiction as well as English fanfiction :) Even though I've read tons of them I have never written something completely in English before, so please excuse minor spelling mistakes and such. But if you happen to stumble across errors that greatly affect your understanding of the story, please feel free to tell me! :)  
And yeah, these two are just the nutella to my bread, I love them to pieces 3 this story is set in an Alternate Universe, so be aware of the fact that their characters might be slightly different than they are in the manga/anime (even though I've tried to stick as closely as possible to their usual characterization ;))  
And now enjoy and maybe tell me later if you've liked it? :)

Vexing

Light Yagami, 17 years old, prodigy of his school and maybe whole country, was beyond pissed. He clasped the piece of paper he had just gotten back from their teacher in his hand and just couldn't stop glaring at an unusually hunched over back a few rows from him.  
How could this preposterous bastard who just transferred here a few weeks ago right before midterms just steamroll into his life and take away everything he had worked for so (more or less) hard?! Light was fuming, and his best friend Kiyomi Takada turned bemusedly towards him.  
„Whats up, Light? ", she whispered.  
„Not content with your score? "  
She giggled, fully aware of the fact that Light had, like usual, aced his test, and that this was hardly the problem. As she followed his angry glare to L, the „new guy", her eyes lit up in recognition.  
„Now don't tell me you're angry because _he_ got the same score as you, Light? "  
„Of course I'm not angry", Light growled, „why should I be?! ". But his voice and demeanour betrayed him wholeheartedly.  
He didn't even know himself why this vexed him so much – after all he still was on top of the class, even though L now held the same score as him. Slowly he let go of the offending paper and forced himself to breath in and out deeply. He would not sink so low as to be jealous of someone just because of a stupid test! That was like _so _beneath him, he could have almost laughed. Almost.  
But there were just so many different feelings inside him that all he could think of was '_why_?'

He could clearly remember the day L first entered his life. It had been a fairly normal day in spring as their homeroom teacher announced that their class would get a new addition to it today. Everyone was whispering about it because it was pretty unusual for someone to transfer in the middle of the school year, especially right before all the midterms they'd have to write in the following days.  
Nonetheless, everybody was highly interested in who that new student might be. As he finally entered the classroom, every student in the room gaped at the odd figure that stood in front of them.  
"Please be kind to our new student and classmate!" their teacher announced, giving the boy at his side an encouraging smile.  
Slowly, he stepped forward.  
"Hi, I'm L. Pleased to meet you."  
His voice was soft, almost inaudible, but due to the utter silence in the classroom it could still be heard even at the back where Light was seated. He himself was pretty startled by the odd name and appearance of L. He just stood there, slightly hunched over, his hands shoved in the pockets of his way too baggy jeans, looking over the faces of his new classmates.  
A mop of pitch-black hair almost hid the startling storm-grey eyes that were almost as dark as his hair.  
As dark eyes clashed with honey coloured ones, a shiver ran down Light's spine. He almost wavered under the intense gaze that seemed to linger longer on him than it had on the other people in the room. The corners of L's mouth twitched slightly upwards just before he averted his gaze back to their teacher, who pointed at a free table L could occupy from now on.  
And just like that L had come into Light's life and turned everything upside down.

It started a few days after that first encounter when Light and L got paired up for a tennis match during P.E. Light smirked to himself when he thought about how unlucky L had been considering he was junior tennis champion at their school. But well, he couldn't help it – he wouldn't go easy on him either since this was just not his way of doing things. And maybe this was also a good way of getting rid of his mixed feelings towards the silent boy – he literally hadn't talked to anybody except for their teacher these past days. Maybe this was also because of the fact that everybody had been whispering about L behind his back and nobody exactly knew how to approach him, so nobody did.  
But Light had frequently felt those eyes on him during class, almost as if they were contemplating something. However, every time Light looked up from his book in L's direction, he was met with the back of said teen, always sitting in a crouched position with his feet on the chair as well. It made his right eye twitch and he honestly didn't know how to deal with it.  
There just was something about L that Light felt drawn to, even though he couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was. Maybe the fact that he just seemed more in his league intelligence-wise than the rest of their class? Or was it just his weird behaviour and looks? Or the way he stared at him sometimes? Light just didn't know but he was resolved to not let that distract him of the match that was about to start.  
"Okay guys, now that everybody has his assigned partner, I expect you to just play a match and see what you have learned these past weeks!" their teacher announced, leading his whistle closer to his mouth.  
Light grabbed is racket a bit harder and grinned slightly. He would show L just what he was capable of. On the other side of the net said boy just stood there lazily leaning on his racket, looking like he had not a care in the world.

At the sound of the whistle Light didn't hesitate to throw the ball in the air and hit it as hard as he could. He was almost certain that L wouldn't be able to return that one since he didn't particularly look athletic or interested for that matter.  
The grace and speed with which his serve was met left Light gaping. What the hell had just happened?! How did he – he just stood at the complete other side of the field and …. But L didn't give Light time enough to think about how exactly he had met the serve since the ball returned with such speed that he really had to focus in order to meet the ball.  
L smirked. Well now, that would be very interesting indeed.

A few minutes later almost everybody who had been on the adjacent courts had stopped what they were doing in favour of assembling around the field on which L and Light seemed like they were vigorously battling each other to death. Really – it just couldn't be described with other words. The precision, speed and strength with which they exchanged the ball just told a story of the equally skilled teenagers even though both were utterly different.  
The people started to mutter – Light was junior tennis champion, no one had ever been able to match him to this day. Now it looked like that had changed all of a sudden, and of all people it was that weird transfer student who looked like he never left his room voluntarily with his pale skin and dark bags under his eyes.  
If you looked a little bit closer you could see how Lights ego suffered as hell.

Who the fuck did L think he _was_? Challenging him like that! Tennis was _his_ territory, and he wouldn't let himself be pushed from the throne! No way in hell! And he didn't even seem to break a sweat, playing like that in his ridiculously baggy pants and oversized white shirt, his bangs so long he shouldn't even be able to see properly!  
Light felt the adrenaline raging through his veins and he briefly wonderer when the last time was that he had felt excited like that. He quickly pushed that thought aside though in order to focus fully on the ongoing match, because he was definitely not going to lose. That would like literally be the end of his pride and he would have _none_ of that. Pffft.

There it was – finally Light had been able to end the game with a strike that had almost been outside the lines, but the keyword was _almost_ here. In this tiny moment L's judgement had betrayed him and the ball landed inside his field and ended the game.  
The crowd cheered and for the first time L became aware of all the people that had gathered around them. Of course Light was already being surrounded by screaming fangirls and friends patting him on the back to congratulate him.  
L was already turning away, not being too comfortable in confronting so many people at once. But before he completely turned his back he caught a movement out of the corners of his eyes and the next moment a strong hand spun him back around.  
"Hey, L", a smirking Light said. "We haven't really introduced ourselves, but congrats on the great game! You really did make me sweat, that's quite an achievement".  
L just looked at him curiously.  
"Now is that so? I wonder what else could make you sweat …"  
The last part was just muttered barely audible, still Light was able to catch it. But before his brain could properly process the words and come up with a good reply, L had already turned his back on him and walked away.  
Wha -?!  
Light just stared at the retreating form. There he was, just trying to be nice, and then this bastard said something like this? What was that even supposed to mean? Make him sweat? What the hell? Was L a moron or what? Or a pervert? Light shook his head. This whole situation was totally ridiculous, he would definitely not be thinking about that _ever_ again.

From that moment on, things just got worse. It seemed like in everything Light did he now had a rival. It didn't matter if it were tests, sports or something else – L just seemed to be on par with him in everything and it was definitely very vexing. Before that Light had been the only one at the top, and he didn't like sharing. No, definitely not.  
The little knowing smirks L sent him occasionally didn't seem to make the situation better, so Light mostly refrained from acknowledging them. Though sometimes he couldn't deny the weird feeling in his stomach he got when meeting those grey eyes …  
Although Light didn't know how he had accomplished that, L seemed to have found some friends from other classes. If he wasn't mistaken their names were Mello, Matt and Near … or Nate, something like that, Light had barely ever seen them and just stalked their Facebook profile. Not that he was remotely interested in finding out more about L, not even _close_.  
It was just good to know his fellow students. Or so he told himself.

By now almost everybody in their class seemed to feel the tension between those two geniuses but just took that as a logical consequence of them being rivals. Never ever had anybody challenged Light's wits except for L, and clearly neither of them liked the idea of losing.  
So the temperature in the classroom seemed to instantly drop a few degrees as one day their math teacher announced that they had to work in pairs on a math project which they also had to present to the class a few days later. And he also announced the pairs he had formed regarding the scores they have had in the last of their tests – and naturally Light was paired up with L.  
Light felt every eye in the room follow his steps towards the front where he was forced to sit beside L of all people. It was almost as if they expected them to murder each other the second they were together, but no. Those two were much more subtle in their malice and so no blood was shed. Yet.

Light's intention was to play it cool – which was very hard regarding the vexing manners of his project partner. He just kept sitting in this stupid crouched position, continuing to eat sugar cubes while scribbling something in his notebook. They ultimately had settled on solving the problem on their own and then comparing their solutions. But Light just couldn't concentrate like this, not with a hyperactive L swinging around on his chair and eating crunchy stuff, so at some point Light just slammed his hand on the desk.  
"L, could you please just shut up? How am I supposed to do anything properly like this?!"  
L turned his dark eyes towards him, amusement sparkling faintly in them.  
"Technically I'm not even talking, so how am I supposed to shut up?"  
"Argh, just stop everything you're doing except for writing!" Light all but shouted as not to disturb his fellow classmates.  
"I'm very sorry Light but I will have to deny your request politely" L just answered before he averted his gaze again and stuffed another sugar cube into his mouth.  
Light just ground his teeth and tried to ignore the sound as much as possible.  
It just didn't work.  
Light could feel how he became more irritated every second he had to listen to the weird sounds L made while chewing and thinking. He could faintly feel the pain of a starting headache, and now that L had also started babbling about his solution it just got worse.  
"… and this x is not supposed to equal 51 if you consider the wording of the question which clearly indicates that it's impossible for it toHMPFfff-"  
Something inside Light had just snapped and together with the irritation and pain his brain had just completely blacked out and there he was – kissing L to shut him up, even if it only was for a few seconds. The moment he parted their lips again he could already here the shocked whispers around them, but everything that seemed to matter in that second was the look in L's eyes, usually so unreadable but unbelievably beautiful in this short moment of utter shock.  
" … I'm going to finish that at home" Light declared then, packing his stuff and leaving a confused class and an even more confused L behind.

A moment later Kiyomi made her way towards L, lightly patting his shoulder and whispering "I _knew_ something was going on between you two!" before she also left the room as the bells rang, signalling for everybody that the school day had ended for the time being.  
Everybody left, one by one, still whispering about the strange thing that had transpired earlier, until only L was left in the room.  
He slowly brought a thumb up to his mouth and faintly traced his lips with it. Thinking about the kiss brought a small blush to the genius' cheeks – in fact it had been his first kiss ever, and he didn't really know what to think of it. Everything he could think of was just the feeling and that he had strangely liked it.

Light was sprawled out on his bed, one arm covering his eyes as he sighed deeply. What the hell had he just done? Why was his brain just not working properly around L? And how did things just escalate so quickly?  
One moment he was just incredibly unnerved, and in the other he was suddenly kissing L …. Light groaned. He just couldn't sort out the weird feelings he held for that stupid boy and he wasn't entirely sure if he even wanted to do that.  
But it was just that whenever he saw his face he just wanted to take him, slam him against the nearest wall and … - wait. Where did that come from?!  
Panic rose in Light as he realised that at some point during their mutual rivalry the tension must have turned into sexual desire – well, at least for him. Somehow he just couldn't picture L that way …. Hell, he hadn't even thought himself capable of such feelings! And with a guy, too! He wouldn't even say that he was gay, but maybe that was something he should reconsider given the events of the day …. Oh what the fuck was just wrong with him? That was _so_ not his usual self …

A knock at the door interrupted the dangerous train of his thoughts and for a quick second Light was even grateful for that.  
"Light?" his mother asked in a calm voice "there's a friend of yours here to speak with you."  
Kiyomi? Misa? Matsuda? Light didn't know who would have business with him anyways, but he guessed the girls would want to question him as of today's events. He just knew they loved gossiping and he had just played right into their hands. The had probably wished for him to be gay in like forever as if only to take him shopping and do other awful stuff together …. Argh, please, no!  
"Yeah yeah, send them in" he just groaned in response, not even bothering to uncover his eyes as the door opened audibly and closed a moment after that. He just so wasn't up for that right now.  
"What is it?" he spit out after he hadn't heard anything for a few seconds. Normally the girls weren't quiet for even a moment but this could just mean that -  
"I could ask you the same question, Light", a soft voice answered him and all of a sudden Light sat up an just stared incredulously at the figure standing in his room.  
"L?! What the hell are you doing here?" He just couldn't believe it! He was not supposed to _be_ here! He was not ready for that _at all_!  
L scratched the back of his head as he seemed to think of an answer.  
"Well, to be honest, I don't even know myself why I am here. I guess things left me a little … confused?" he admitted, staring intently into Lights widened eyes.  
"Look", Light began, "I'm really sorry for that …. thing earlier, I didn't know what I was doing but I was just so irritated and you didn't stop talking and god, I just don't know anymore …. Can we please just forget that ever happened?"  
For a moment L just looked at him with an unreadable expression on his face before he moved closer to where Light was sitting on his bed.  
"I'm sorry but that might not be possible-"  
Light groaned inwardly. Why did this bastard have to be this complicated! Gosh, couldn't he just accept his apology, it had already been hard enough as it is, but no -  
"- because I kind of enjoyed that feeling quite a bit", L finished, leaving Light to just stare at him and choke on his own words.  
L was – he wanted – what did he just say?!  
"Did- did you just say you liked that?!"  
L just smirked nonchalantly.  
"That's what I said, I suppose."  
Now it was Light's turn to groan even more.  
"You don't even know what you're doing to me, you bastard!", he mumbled. "Before you came into my life I was always best at everything, but now it's a constant struggle and it's vexing but exciting at the same time and every time I see your face I just want to-"  
At this point Light had to stop his insane confession before he could scare L away completely, because without him realising it he actually didn't want to lose his rival, his friend, his _love_-  
That's when soft lips suddenly settled on top of his own and made him gasp while his eyes widened in shock for the second time that day.  
"That's quite alright", L whispered, "I believe I feel the same way you do".  
And just like that Light felt himself sighing into the kiss, parting his slips slightly to allows L's tongue entrance to his mouth.

~ a few weeks later ~

Not much had changed in their relationship altogether. Light still found L's behaviour extremely vexing and often he was just moments away from completely losing it. They were still competing to be the best at everything they did, and their friends still wondered at how they could even stand each other enough to be in the same room at the same time.  
But if you looked closely, you could indeed observe a few minor changes.  
A stolen kiss where no one could see it (or so they thought …), a gentle word when no one was listening (but there was always someone listening …), a passionate make-out session when no one was watching (as if the locker rooms were safe, duh …) and just a loving hug when they were alone together in bed.  
It was moments like this when Light seemed to be losing himself in the depths of L's incredible eyes, gently rubbing circles around the delicate hip bones of his lover, that he thought the world was utterly perfect.

And the small smile L wore only for him as rubbed the sensitive parts of their bodies slowly, deliciously together only made it _so_ much better.


End file.
